1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to digital media products. More particularly, the present invention relates to interfaces for accessing digital music content.
2. Description of the Related Art
Digital content has evolved dramatically in terms of scope and prevalence over the past several years. For example, analog sources such as vinyl records played back on turntable playback units have been substantially replaced by portable CD ROM players or personal portable players having MP3 (Motion Picture Experts Group, Audio Layer III) and other audio digital file playback capabilities. Recently, personal portable players have seen increasing popularity. Portable media players typically download digital files from a client computer. In the process of downloading, the personal players have experienced a first level of filtering. That is, personal players typically employ a flash memory or other memory storage device and require the downloading of digital content into the memory. In most cases, the user is responsible for selecting the music for downloading and hence filters the available music to store only digital content in which he has an interest.
In contrast, the digital content often found on some electronic device such as personal computers experience only minor forms of filtering. For example, a home computer or home computer network may be accessed by a number of different individuals residing in the home, all having varying entertainment tastes and preferences. Accordingly, accessing a particular class of media tracks requires some form of filtering. That is, many of the tracks stored by other users for the particular home computer or network may have little relevance to other users. In such a case finding tracks for playback involves an often-frustrating level of searching through a large directory of tracks. Even portable MP3 players with hierarchical navigation may still benefit from further filtering.
Moreover, different users have different levels of comfort with technology. For example, there are many “passive” listeners, such as those who desire only a high level of filtering. They may care only about listening to a particular genre and care little if at all about the particular songs being played within that genre. For them, searching for individual tracks hidden among a larger group of tracks may provide even greater levels of frustration.
Recognizing the different degrees of sophistication of users and their comfort levels with technology, what is needed is an interface system that is adaptable to the different levels of interest, preference, and comfort with technology. It is therefore desirable to provide an improved user interface that provides easy access to tracks filtered for the user and customizable by the user.